Ben's Bells

The mission of Ben's Bells is to teach individuals and communities about the positive impacts of intentional kindness and to inspire people to practice kindness as a way of life. This year, Ben’s Bells is celebrating 16 years!

Ben’s Bells is known for its colorful ceramic bells created by volunteers and hung for the purpose of creating a culture of kindness and connecting our communities.

The organization was founded in 2003 after  the  sudden death of Jeannette Maré’s two-year old son, Ben. The simple everyday acts of kindness following his death helped Maré’s family to survive and begin to heal. Jeannette was inspired to establish the Ben’s Bells Project as a way to recognize and continue the kindness shown to her family.

In addition to distributing bells in our communities and recognizing kind community members through weekly "bellings", Ben’s Bells offers our Kind Campus program free to schools and educators. Research demonstrates that kindness and generosity have positive physical and mental health outcomes, and that recognizing kindness in others increases subjective happiness and satisfaction with school. The Kind Campus program builds the social and emotional skills students need to practice kindness consistently, with the belief that we are all capable of creating a kind culture when we have the tools.

The University of Arizona selected Ben’s Bells educational programs to study in a multi-year research project, as University faculty believe the unique approach Ben’s Bells uses could serve as a national model in proactively combating bullying and violence. 

Charles Raison, MD of the University of Arizona, world renowned researcher on the science of compassion, and mental health expert for CNN said, “We in the West have done an exemplary job of teaching particulars required to function in the modern world, with one exception, which is that we have failed to fully recognize that with increasing global connectedness it is more important than ever that we learn to treat each other with compassion and understanding. Ben's Bells Project is absolutely unique in its grass-roots and remarkably effective approach to addressing just this issue by teaching kindness and compassion to students.”